Perceptual measures of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners across defined virtual acoustic scenes

OBJECTIVE: To achieve a multi-dimensional characterisation of normal-hearing and hearing-impaired listeners' hearing abilities, including standard audiological conditions and virtual acoustic scenes for the evaluation of hearing aids. DESIGN: Within-subjects design, including speech intelligibility and listening effort measurements in two standard conditions and four virtual acoustic scenes, and assessments of loudness scaling, tone-in-noise detection thresholds, and HEAR-COMMAND tool questionnaire. STUDY SAMPLE: 76 age-matched listeners, including 20 normal-hearing, 25 hearing-impaired without hearing aids, and 31 hearing aid users. RESULTS: and underground station environment were the most challenging conditions regarding speech intelligibility and listening effort. The pure-tone average explained most of the differences between the listener groups in loudness perception and tone-in-noise detection thresholds. Moderate to strong correlations were found between the HEAR-COMMAND tool speech scores and speech intelligibility. CONCLUSIONS: The study established a unique measurement database including complex virtual acoustic scenes and demonstrated a connection between speech intelligibility, hearing aid benefit, and other perceptual auditory measures. The database and findings provide a valuable foundation for advancing hearing aid evaluation and can serve as a benchmark in computational audiology.